seem particularly interested in people associating him with:
Of course, Portugal at the time was a practical dictatorship, so I’m sure anything looked good to some people if their standards are low enough. The idea of quibbling late at night over whether or not you prefer Enver Hoxha’s shining path over that of Mao Zedong who made even the isolationist Albanian look “modern minded” would seem right at home.
Hoxha had suffered from diabetes for many years and by the 1980s he knew his days were numbered. He wanted a young colleague named Ramiz Alia to succeed him and cleared the way for him by eliminating Mehmet Shehu, his righthand man since 1948, who was now prime minister and minister of the interior. In 1981 it was announced that he had suffered a nervous breakdown and committed suicide. The official story did not stand up and there were whispers in Tirana that Shehu had been shot and killed at a meeting of the politburo, perhaps by Hoxha himself. It was presently given out, highly improbably, that he had been spying for the Americans, the British and the Vatican.Have a nice day.
